Falling Away (13 page)

And just like that we’re naked, and we haven’t even left the front door.
 

I take his hands in mine and walk backward, pulling him into his room. But then he turns the tables, spinning and sitting on the edge of the bed and tugging me to him, kissing my chest and my stomach, clutching and caressing my ass, licking my tits and between them, and then his fingers find my opening and I gasp as he slides two fingers into me, his palm cupping my bare flesh. And in that moment I’m glad I used one of his disposable razors to shave the other day.
 

I ride his fingers until I’m gasping, and then I push him down and lie on him, rise astride him, kiss him, reach between us to grasp his erection…but he grabs my hips and lifts me, pulls me forward and settles me on him. I kneel over his face and he hooks his arms over my thighs, finds my opening and parts me, laps at me with his tongue, and before I know it I’m gasping and groaning and coming, but he’s relentless and moves his fingers into me, two thick fingers inside me and fucks me with them and licks and licks and sucks at my clit and I come again.

When I’m not sure I can withstand another orgasm, I lift up and off him. “Ben, enough. I want you.”
 

I shimmy down his body until I feel the thick round head of his cock at my entrance, but then he tenses and grips my hips to free me in place.
 

“Echo, wait,” he growls, his voice low and rough.

I look down at his face, see the tension and the fear and the doubt and even pain, and I can’t figure any of it out. “Why? I thought you wanted this?”

“I do, Jesus I do. So fucking bad it literally hurts.”

“Then why are you stopping me?” I grip his cock in my hand and stroke him. “I want you, Ben. I want this, with you, right
now
. I’m clean, and I’ve got an IUD. We’re covered, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

He shakes his head. “No. I mean, yeah, that crossed my mind. But…that’s not—that’s not why I stopped you.”

I groan in frustration. “Then what the hell is the problem? Is it the thing with Mom, again? Ben, I told you. I don’t blame you, and you shouldn’t blame yourself. As for the other part, like you said, nothing actually happened, so it’s—”

He shifts under my caress, and then lifts me off him. I move to sit cross-legged on the bed, not bothering to hide my irritation. Ben flexes his knee, and then moves to sit on the bed facing me, his erection straining. “There’s something you should know.”

“Well, I know you’re not gay, because I’ve felt the evidence to the contrary, several times now. So what could you possibly have to tell me that would change me wanting to have sex with you?” I shift closer to him, and move so I’m sitting on his lap. He winces, adjusts the angle of his knee so my weight isn’t bothering it, and then I wrap my legs around his hip and drape my arms over his shoulders. I press my lips to his neck and then his ear. “Because Ben…I
really
want to have sex with you. A lot of hot and possibly kinky sex. So…what?”

He swallows hard and blinks and looks at me, swallows again, and then rests his forehead against mine. “I—this is going to sound stupid, but it’s true. I’m a virgin.”
 

I laugh immediately because god, he’s
got
to be joking. “Um yeah,
sure
. Okay.”
 

He frowns, and swallows again, as if fear and embarrassment are overwhelming him, and I start to feel the beginnings of something boiling inside me. “It’s not a joke, Echo. I swear.”
 

“But…” I shake my head. “Earlier, we—you went down on me. You have, more than once now. And there’s no fucking way in hell that was your first time. You’re too damned good at it. The way you touch me, the way you kiss me…what the fuck are you
talking
about, Benji?”

He sighs. “I’ve done that stuff before, yeah. But actual sex, like intercourse? No, I’ve never done that.”

I can only blink at him. “I…Jesus, Ben. How—I mean, how does that happen?”
 

“That’s a long story.”
 

“A two-beer story, or three?”

“Three, I’d say.” He won’t look at me.
 

I slide back off his lap, my curiosity and emotions in turmoil. He looks distraught as I hop to the floor, and I know I’ve got to hear this, but I also know I still want him. So I move behind him, wrap my arms around his waist and kiss his shoulder, the back of his neck.
 

“Hey Benji-Boy?” I whisper in his ear.

“Yeah?” He twists to look at me, hesitation and need on his face.
 

I let my hands drift down between his legs and clasp both palms around him. “You owe me a hell of story. But nothing’s changed.”

I don’t wait for his response. I bring six bottles and an opener and set it all on the side table, pop two bottles open, and then settle myself on the bed.
 

Ben takes his beer and leans back against the wall beside me. “So…the heartbreak I told you about? It all goes back to that. Her name is Kylie. My parents and hers are best friends, and Kylie and I grew up across the street from each other. I was there when her parents brought her home from the hospital. We grew up together. We spent literally every single day together from the time she was born. We were inseparable. And even when we got to the age where we were noticing the opposite sex, neither of us were ever interested in anyone else, even though nothing happened between us.”
 

He swallows a huge gulp of beer and then stares down into the suds in the bottle. “The problem was…I was in love with her. I remember the day I first realized she wasn’t just my best friend, but that she was a
girl
, you know? I was fourteen, she was…not quite twelve? Around there. And she developed early, you know what I mean? By twelve she looked fourteen easily. And were at the beach together, at my parents’ lake house. We were swimming, playing some game. I don’t remember what. Chasing each other, splashing, whatever. And suddenly I couldn’t stop staring at her. Like, all of a sudden I realized she had these parts that I really liked looking at, right? And she was my best friend, but all the hormonal puberty stuff? It was all focused on her. And it wasn’t just hormones, though, you know? I knew her better than anyone. I knew how talented she was and how cool and just awesome she was. I just…fell head over heels for her.”
 

“Sounds like that was inevitable, though,” I remark.

He shrugs and nods. “Yeah, maybe. But I realized that she was only eleven or twelve, and I couldn’t…say or do anything. Obviously.”
 

I grin at him. “But you jerked off thinking about her, didn’t you?”

He blushes furiously and starts peeling the label off his beer. “Yeah, I did.”

I can’t help laughing. “I’m just teasing you, Ben. You’re fucking adorable when you blush.”
 

He pins me with a glower. “Yeah, well, I can’t help it. So, yeah, I jerked off thinking about her. I was a fourteen-year-old kid, so pretty much anything got me going. But Kylie was it, man. She was all I thought about. All my buddies started trying to get girls to go out with them and tried to cop a feel and whatever, and they bragged about getting to second base or whatever, but I didn’t get into anything like that. I was waiting for Kylie.”

I start to sense the shape of the story. “Oh. Shit.”
 

He nods. “Yeah. I waited, and I waited. She turned fourteen, and then fifteen, and I’d never even had a girlfriend, and she’d never shown any interest in other guys, thank god, but I just couldn’t figure out how to…how to broach the issue. How to tell her, out of the blue, that I’d been in love with her since she was fucking eleven.
 

“I mean, how do you start
that
conversation? I tried so many times. We’d be sitting on her porch talking and doing homework, or watching TV, or driving around in my car, and I’d be thinking about what I’d say, and I’d even open my mouth, but I couldn’t get the words out.”
 

He sighs and drains his beer, takes another. “I never could. I turned eighteen, nineteen, went to college near home and lived with my parents, and she was always right there. Never dated anyone, just never seemed interested. I thought that was a sign that we were meant to be together. So I made a plan. She’d graduate and we’d go on a road trip together. Just the two of us, the whole summer. Just go somewhere. Anywhere. And we’d…I wouldn’t have to tell her. She’d just realize. And we’d get together, and I’d eventually tell her how long I’d loved her. I never said a thing. I never let on how I felt. I didn’t know how, you know? We’d go to the lake and I’d have to hide how the sight of her in a bikini turned me on—especially as she got older and really filled out. I’d hide in the water and keep my distance. I kept assholes away from her. I protected her. I took care of her. Drove her to school, dropped her off, and we were always just…best friends. That was always the same.”

I finish my beer and start another. “And then…”

He nods. “And then she met
Oz
.” He says the name with venom, spits it. “Shit, it’s hard to talk about this. I’ve never said any of this to anyone. Not ever, not to anyone.”

I reach out and tangle our fingers together, rest our hands on my thigh. “So what happened with Oz? And why does it sound like you hate him?”

He sighs, closes his eyes and visibly summons the words. “I don’t hate him. I just…well, part of me does, I guess. He was a new guy, showed up her senior year. He was older than her. About my age, I think. Obviously older. And he was…from the other side of the tracks, you know? Tattoos and piercings and metal shirts, big attitude, badass motorcycle. A real bad boy. I didn’t like him from the first time I saw him, and…and she did. She got on his motorcycle the first time she met him, and rode off with him. And that was it. I knew it then, I knew…that was it. She had her arms around his waist and she was holding on to him like…like she wouldn’t ever let go. And she had this look on her face…like…like she was
happy.
But in a way I’d never made her. Excited. Exhilarated.” He sounds so bitter, so angry. “I got pissed. I was stupid. But I didn’t trust him. He just reeked of bad boy, you know? Like I knew he did drugs, and drank and all that. Kylie was too good, too innocent and pure for a fucking hardass like him. I tried to protect her from him.”

“Uh-oh,” I say. “I bet that didn’t go over well.”
 

He laughs mirthlessly. “Yeah, no. It drove her to him all the more. It was jealousy, like
mad
jealousy. She was supposed to be mine. Half a year more and she would have been. But he came along, and…fucked it all up. So I was pissed off and jealous and then kind of turned into a huge dick. But it was also honest worry. He had these scars on his forearms that made me just sick with worry, like what darkness is he pulling her into? And there wasn’t a goddamn thing I could do. I tried. I warned her. I tried to tell her how I felt about him, but she just…shut me down cold. Pinned me on it, you know? Pegged me as jealous. Just…she didn’t realize how deep the jealousy went.”

“Because you’d never told her how you really felt,” I fill in.

“Right.” He takes a couple sips and keeps going. “So I tried to move on. I could see she was happy with him. And there was nothing I could do. She was just…gone. It was too hard to be around her because they were always together, so I pulled away. Started dating chicks at the university. And…we’d fool around. I was able to bullshit my way past the fact that I’d never had a girlfriend until my sophomore year of college, which was fucking pathetic enough as it was. But…I couldn’t ever get past messing around. Not because the chicks weren’t willing, though. It was me. We’d mess around and whatever, but when it came time to actually sleep together, I just…couldn’t. That was something that was supposed to happen with Kylie, and I couldn’t get that thought out of my head. I fucking tried. I was in bed with a girl, like…right there, as close as we were to it just now. And I panicked. I jetted out of there and never saw her again. She was cool about it, though. I claimed I was sick or something stupid, and she just went with it, didn’t make me feel bad, didn’t tell anyone.
 

“I’d also been hoping dating other girls would maybe make Kylie jealous or something, but it didn’t. She didn’t care. She had Oz. And fuck, I could tell Oz was good to her. They were good together, and I couldn’t deny it. So it turns out that she and Oz got into an accident on his motorcycle. I got pissed and defensive, and went after him. Like, I knew this would happen, I knew he’d hurt her. We got in a fight, and…he got hit by a car. Almost died. Went into a coma and almost didn’t wake up.”

“Oh my god.”
 

He nods. “Yeah. That’s not the crazy part, though. So…I find out his name isn’t actually Oz. It’s Benjamin.”

“What? You guys have the same name?”
 

There’s an odd look in his eye as he barks a laugh. “Actually, our first and middle names are the exact same. Benjamin Aziz. My mom is half-Lebanese, and…his dad was my mom’s brother. We’re both named after him.”
 

I stare at him. “You’re kidding me. He’s your cousin?”

I nod. “Yeah. None of us realized it until his mom and my mom met for the first time. It was a fucked-up story. His dad committed suicide before he was born, and his mom moved around a lot, just messed up from the whole thing. He never knew anything about him, and he and his mom just…bizarrely, coincidentally ended up in our lives. So I can’t hate him, because he’s a good guy, and he loves Kylie like fucking crazy. But he not only stole the girl I loved, but my best friend, too.
 

“Because I just…it hurt too bad to be around them. Around her. I ended up telling her how I felt. I told her I’d loved her our whole lives, and that she was supposed to be mine. And she was…this is the part that fucking hurts the worst. She told me she’d had a crush on me, too, when she was younger. She’d waited for me to make a move, wished I’d kiss her, and I almost had so,
so
many times, but always chickened out. But Kylie got sick of waiting, and didn’t want to risk our friendship by making a move herself. Neither did I, you know? I was afraid. What if she didn’t love me back? What if I told her I loved her or kissed her or whatever…and she rejected me? I was scared, and I lost my chance. I left home not long after that, and haven’t been back since. That was over a year and a half ago.”